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796

Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 2011

7:30am

  • 10min warm up
  • 10min drills
  • 10 x grass strides tempo (800m)

(6hrs of phd)

5:30pm
[COLOR="#9932cc"]- 20min biking to the park, short jog

  • 1000m worth of tempo (100s, 150s,200s), short break
  • 1000m worth of tempo (same as above), short jog
  • 400m worth of tempo (100,100,200m) , short jog
    (total 2400m)[/COLOR]
    note: for the last set I was planning to do 5x100s, but during that third rep, two strange guys were waiting at my finish line, whistling and clapping like dorks who’ve never seen an athlete before - so I continued 100 more meters then jogged to my bicycle and left
  • 20min biking back

(total tempo today: 3200m)

(more hours of phd)

Best words of encouragement today from a good friend: "Keep it up! When all this is over, you’ll look back and feel proud of yourself! :slight_smile: " Thanks Nick :smiley:

www.stefaniesart.com

797

Thursday, Sept. 22nd, 2011

ugghh what a day !!

One of these things is going on:
a) I trained too much (??)
b) I lost 3-4 kg too suddenly
c) I’m not sleeping enough
d) I’m still recovering from the change of my environment
e) There’s not enough love surrounding me here
f) I’m working too much
g) All of the above

Why?
Because today at training all I really did was 3 pathetic 400s with 2.30min rests at 1:10, 1:15, 1:20, during which I felt extremely tight (my hamstrings almost exploded), but I can’t say I was feeling too well before them, and then I did 4x150s with walk back rests all at 22.xx secs, and since this training session I have been sneezing uncontrallably, and my nose is runny and my eyes weigh 10kg each, and I just want to sleep, but I can’t, because my nose is too stuffy.
But I know that in the morning, I will be fine, because this always happens to me when I’m tired and then go do a lactic workout.
Ughhhhh… I feel like death.
Why am I still awake?

Today was actually fun, after all. The workout started like this:
The older sicilian brother called me and said “YOU’RE RUNNING THE 400M RELAY TODAY” !!! (I love this guy…)
I said " OKKK !!! "
He said “IT’S ACTUALLY GOING TO BE 8X400M FOR EACH MEMBER OF THE TEAM”
I said " =S OKK??? "
He then explained that each team would have 3 members, and we would rotate around, running 400m each ,for a team total of almost 10,000m. This is the italian version of “the 10km relay”.
He said "BE THERE AT 12.30 !!! "

The sun was steaming and my body was aching. Anywayyy.

The sicilian coach didn’t think it was a good idea running 8x400 (smart man, pfeew), so I ran ‘out of competition’, but with the other people, who were really having a blast. This is actually an excellent idea to go through a training session with the track full of people running one-lappers… There were like 20 teams in the same ‘race’.
I hopped in for my own session whenever I liked; I played the ‘rabbit’ for some.

Why am I still stick?

I later spoke with Dejan’s coach from back home, and I heard a few encouraging wise sentences:
a) you seem a bit ‘empty’, (this is a greek expression for lack of energy due to training), enough tired, and very loaded
b) if you ‘unload’ a bit, you’ll feel great and fast
c) it needs patience and much caution !!!
d) when we’re ‘loading’, we don’t go on a diet !!! eat something (but not ‘everything’)
e) patience once again. The body ‘breaks through walls’

So simple, so obvious, yet so much forgotten words.

Summing up the training:

  • 15min biking

  • 20min warm up, drills, stretch, strides

  • 3 x 400m w/2.30rests (1:10, 1:15, 1:20)

  • 4 x 150m w/walk back rests (22.xx, 22.xx, 22.xx, 21.xx)

  • stretch

  • 15min biking

(Saturday will be faster stuff (80s and 60s), with the sicilians again, yipee, and starting next week I will start putting in more fast quality work with more accels) < this is the plan, at least

www.stefaniesart.com

798

Here we call lack of energy " Punctured "

799

insightful description!! :wink:

Friday, Sept. 23rd
(wow times just FLIES, it’s scary and worrisome !) work work work work work (I like it)
and trainingggg is just getting addictiveeeee

I felt sick today, so I did not go out for my morning warm-up. I was still sneezing and having a runny nose from my 400m allergies :stuck_out_tongue:

evening:

  • 25min biking to the park

  • 30min long warm up that evolved into a fartlek, trying to escape from this man who kept running RIGHT behind me during the whole course (despite my switching paths etc), I wonder how I did not make him die with my 100m randomized accelerations.
    Conclusion: Fartleks are KILLERS.

then relaxed with my interrupted (meaning walk between the runs, rather than jog as above) tempo:

  • 150, 100, 100, 150, 200, 150, 200 (total 1050m )

  • 25min bike back

(miraculously, my sinuses got healed during training and perfectly fine since then)

Saturday, Sept. 24th 2011

  • 15min bike to the stadium

Training with one Sicilian (and one italian whose name we never found out, oh well)

  • 22min warm up, stretch

  • drills, strides, some with spikes (first spike session since, oups, May …) :o

  • 5 x 80m (I believe all were low 11s), walk back recoveries . 5min rest

  • 5 x 60m (these were rather good :slight_smile: ) all under 8" ! with slight tail wind of course,walk back recoveries. 10min rest w/ some ‘kenyan jogging’, as the Sicilian calls it.

  • 1 x 300m relaxed at 46.00" - can’t say I put all my effort into this one, which makes me mad, and a whimp… Sometimes I get mad at myself :mad: I could have easily been a 44 if I tried. The weather has been great, and I should be taking more advantage of it.

  • 40min gym (strength, abs and stretching).

  • 15min bike home

800

Sunday, Sept.25th, 2011
off

Monday, Sept. 26th, 2011

morning: (all grass)

  • 10min warm up
  • 12-14 drills followed by short stride
  • 10 x 100m tempo runs (total 1000m)
  • 5min cool down

evening Sicilian training

  • 20min biking
  • 40min run with older sicilian brother. (why do I feel like I’ve committed a crime every time I post a long run on here? =P )
  • 10min cool down with 3-4 strides
  • 20min biking

actually it was a crime; overstretched calf now … Surprisingly it’s not the left calf that I ALWAYS overstretch.

Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011

  • 20min biking
    Sicilian training:

  • 25min warm up (calf needing care… )

  • stretch, drill, stride

  • 4 x 300m w/1:20 rest, in trainers; 54", 56", 55", 50"

  • 20min biking

EMS:

  • 3 therapies of calves on relaxing massage (20min each)

notes of the day:
[i]- don’t try to explain things to people in 5’ that took you 10 years to learn

  • be extra friendly only to people who deserve it
  • take a minute and breathe sometimes. Even though while you’re working, you’re accomplishing things at a faster rate, there’s also much virtue in taking time to absorb the positive energy of peers
  • hang out only with peers of positive energy
  • look for alternate biking routes for one destination - look for alternate routes in life. It adds splendidness. [/i]
801

Wednesday, Sept. 28th, 2011

I have an overstretched right calf and I’m fixing it.

EMS

  • 25min hamstrings active recovery (after this >> so much better)
  • 3 x 20min calves relaxing massage
802

Why the double sessions?

803

They wake me up !! They’re actually very refreshing, as the morning ones are always grass and strides, and then I can do 8 hours of work more at peace =) (less leg pain sitting at the desk, too)

p.s. I also wholeheartedly believe now that training more frequently, gives the body less of a shock when it starts training, so less chance of injury, when being careful of course with the surfaces and type of training… (I overstretched the calf because of a ‘sudden 40min long run’.)

804

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

morning stretching and self calf massage

  • 17min biking

noon training with the sicilians and a new philosopher sprinter friend who now doesn’t know what to quite do with his diploma.

  • 20min warm up

  • stretch, drill, stride

  • 6 x 150m in trainers (still being careful), 3min recoveries @20.7, 19.7, 21.2, 19.8, 20.5, 22.2

  • 35 min gym (strength, abs and stretching)

  • 17min biking

Today was a 5k run at the track during my training (the sicilian coach also ran it ), in memory of a fellow runner of them (I understand that he was a father to many). It was very nice… more than 40people running it. I like that stadium… it’s full of friendly events and nice people.

Calf was very fine during training today. I can just feel it ‘stretched’ when I stretch it. So I don’t stretch it too hard.
So far so good.

I’m loving the weather.

Andddd I just ate a whole lot of chocolate. 3 days of non-perfect diet, and I can feel a degree chance in leanness…
Perfection is hard work indeed.

805

Friday, Sept. 30th, 2011

I’m bummed that this month does not have one extra day.

Oh well =)

morning:
15min warm up, quick stretch

  • 10 x 40m grass hills (walk back recoveries)
  • 1 x 100m grass run
  • stretching

evening:

  • 20min bike to the park, quick stretch

  • 30min run
    short tempo:

  • 100, 150, 100, 150, 150, 200, 150, 200 (total 1200m)

  • 20min bike back

806

Saturday, Oct. 1st (yikes) 2011

Weeks fly by too fast, I work work work every singe day, and writing a book on one’s own research while making from scratch all of the graphic illustrations (because I’m O.C.D. and too artistically inclined) is just too darn overwhelming =O

Track saves =)

  • 16min bike to the track

  • 22 min warm up, stretch, many drills, 4 strides

  • 5 x 30-40m accelerations from on-the-stomach

  • 3 x 60m EFE

  • 10 sets of (6 hurdles) mobility; 5 for each leg leading

  • 30min gym (strength, abs, stretch)

  • 16min biking back home

I hope it stays sunny forever. It may only rain on a few Sundays.

807

On the book issue, what do you mean?

808

What do YOU mean, Nick??
I mean that it’s just… a LOT of work !!!

809

Sunday, Oct. 2nd, 2011

2.5 hours on my bike around the peripheral ring of Milan, taking notes on 22 public open urban spaces =P It was nice …

Monday, Oct. 3rd, 2011

morning:

  • 10min warm up
  • 11 x 100m tempo runs on grass

evening:

  • 20min biking to Sicilian home
  • 40min run at the park with older Sicilian
  • 17min biking back

bloody blister … (literally)

Tuesday, Oct. 4th, 2011

  • 17min biking to the track

  • 15min warm up

  • stretch, drill, stride, put on spikes

  • 5 x 200m w/2min rests except 4min rest before the 5th one. @29,30,30,30,31. Hamstrings had a heart attack after the 4th one.
    Good session, considering I didn’t feel ‘bouncy’ at all today, and the bloody blister was right over a spike… ouch.

  • 10min cool down and quality talking, then good stretch

  • 20min gym session (mostly arms and abs)

  • 17min back home.

note: words can’t really explain (shortly enough) how grateful I am for my Sicilian training group. Accumulating with lactic acid is actually a joy, when done collectively =P Only to mention one benefit.

note 2: I just noticed that the last 3.5 weeks I have been working for every single day on my thesis, for a minimum of 6 and maximum of 11 hours per day.
I … need … a … break …
(meeting with my professor tomorrow).

810

Wednesday, Sept. 5th, 2011

good dayyyyyyyyyy… my meeting with my professor went EXCELLENTLY, and she said that I will be finishing this February =))
Of course the defense has not taken place yet, in front of the board, but things seem smooth. I was so extremely wonderfully happy.

Training was also good. Nice and easy tempo day.

  • 25min bike to the park

  • 10min easy jogging

  • 100-150-100-150-150-200-150-200

  • 100-150-100-150-150-200-150-200
    (total 2400m)

  • 25min biking back and good stretch

Watched Twilight (1). I loveddd it. I have so many movies to catch up to. …

Thursday, Sept. 6th

Sometimes I forget that my last day of passive rest was more than 7 days ago…
So today I might just not do anything, although my legs are hurting and they’re craving for run through’s … (is this activation-addiction, or signs of stress?)

Addicted to track… I think.
And my research work too.

Yesterday I decided after my meeting not to do anything research-related (although it didnt’ really count, as I did have that meeting and talked about it with my professor…)
And I ended up going to the library, getting three books and then skimming though them at night.

The last day that I did not touch my research was I think in the middle of August.

I don’t know how I could ever have a ‘normal’ life.
But that’s ok, of course.

I miss Dejan. This is actually torture.

Training saves. … How do people exist without it??

Watching New Moon tonight, I can hardly wait …

811

Good old days! :stuck_out_tongue:

812

Friday, Oct. 7th, 2011

7:30am training:

  • 10min warm up
  • grass strides: 5 x 80m

short hills:

  • 10 x 40m (walk back recoveries)

6 o’clock evening training: the weather got colder and I feel it on my shins…

  • 20min biking to the park

  • 20min ‘cool down’, where the last 10’ had 5 x 100m strides ‘blended’ inside.

  • 20min biking back

I need to learn liking this cold again… ughhh. Or maybe it was just today. Fingers crossed =)

813

Saturday, October 8th, 2011

17min biking to the track for Sicilian training
20min warm up, stretch, drill, stride

5 x 80m , walk back recoveries <6min rest)
5 x 60m, walk back recoveries <8min rest)

1 x 300m , relaxed and easy, at 46 secs (weather much colder too, so this was good)

17min biking back

Sunday, Oct. 9th

20min biking to park
45min Sicilian run (at 4.44per km, and some faster with one at 4.25)and 2 strides in the end

Sicilian lunch
20min biking back

814

yes

Yours currently injured

John

815

It was nothing serious - it only bothered me for a day or two. As you can see, I’ve been training every day, since.

Plus, calf cramps have always been an issue with me, and it’s mostly a matter of proper stretching. And not a matter of doing an extra ‘warm up/activation’ on the grass in the a.m. … prior to 8hrs of sedentary work and evening training.